The finance reform bill painfully working its way through the Senate will have as much of an effect on the financial community as spraying perfume on cockroaches. To the observer, it looks as if stern steps are being taken against the roaches as the spray is pumped into the cracks and crevasses where they hide. The roaches love it.
But now, it appears that the Obama administration is trying to jeopardize the bill by adding some toxins to the perfume, and Senator Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is upset.
According to Wednesday’s New York Times, the White House wants the bill to cap the future size of financial institutions so a bank going belly up won’t threaten to take the economy down with it.
Former fed chief Paul Volker summed it up nicely when he said, “The mandate is to arrange an orderly liquidation or merger—in other words, euthanasia, not a rescue.”
Dodd’s reaction to the administrations gambit speaks volumes about why the United States is saddled with an impotent Congress. “It’s adding to the problems of trying to get a bill done.” He charged that, “The Obama administration ran the risk of derailing months of delicate negotiations over overhauling financial regulations.”
Let me see if I have this straight. The FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate) industry committed financial assault on the American public. Because of this assault, home values have plummeted, retirement and savings accounts have been hollowed out, and credit has dried up forcing many small businesses to shut their doors, and Congress is negotiating with the criminals over how they are going to be regulated?
There’s not a felon in the country that wouldn’t jump at an opportunity like that. Instead of jail time we’d have “months of delicate negotiations” over the sentence with the accused making a sizable contribution to the judge’s reelection campaign coffers.
Of course, this coddling of criminals in nothing new to the Beltway. Obama has informed us that he will not investigate possible war crimes committed by the Cheney administrations because it’s time to forget the past and look to the future.
This, also, is a concept the criminals of America would embrace. “Hell, your honor, I did it. But let’s not become mired in the past. It’s time to look forward.”
But I forget—bankers are rich; criminals are poor. Therein lies the difference.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Anybody seen a leader? Anybody?
Frank Rich quotes historian Alan Brinkley who points out that Congress is entering its fourth decade in which it “has failed to deal with any major national problem from infrastructure to education.”
Rich, sometimes the master of understatement, goes on to observe that, “There is also a gaping leadership deficit. A closer look at either Pelosi or Reid shows that there is, not just a leadership vacuum; there is a gaping leadership hole down which meaningful legislation disappears to reemerge diluted to the point of nonexistence.
The Senate Majority Leader chair once occupied by Lyndon Johnson is now a child’s potty seat. Rich notes that Johnson was “able to transform a sleepy, seniority-hobbled, regionally polarized debating society into an often-progressive legislative factory.” And that was with a slim majority and a Republican in the White House.
Much as we may miss a Johnson at the Senate’s helm, the truth is we will never see the likes of him again until we wrest control of Congress away from its corporate masters. No member of Congress can hope to achieve a leadership role unless they have been vetted by the oligarchy.
The days of congressional leadership are over. Corporate managers of the Pelosi/Reid ilk have replaced them. These managers create nothing. Rather, they implement the assorted corporate policies mandated by their masters. And their masters are not going to allow a potentially strong leader near anything that resembles a position of power.
In his column, Rich implies that a repressed Congress is thwarting Obama’s raging, progressive hormones. The truth is that there ain’t none. Obama’s as repressed as Congress when it comes to bucking the country’s corporatacracy. His rhetoric is sound without fury. And that’s the best we can hope for until corporations are stripped of their personhood and constitutional rights.
Rich, sometimes the master of understatement, goes on to observe that, “There is also a gaping leadership deficit. A closer look at either Pelosi or Reid shows that there is, not just a leadership vacuum; there is a gaping leadership hole down which meaningful legislation disappears to reemerge diluted to the point of nonexistence.
The Senate Majority Leader chair once occupied by Lyndon Johnson is now a child’s potty seat. Rich notes that Johnson was “able to transform a sleepy, seniority-hobbled, regionally polarized debating society into an often-progressive legislative factory.” And that was with a slim majority and a Republican in the White House.
Much as we may miss a Johnson at the Senate’s helm, the truth is we will never see the likes of him again until we wrest control of Congress away from its corporate masters. No member of Congress can hope to achieve a leadership role unless they have been vetted by the oligarchy.
The days of congressional leadership are over. Corporate managers of the Pelosi/Reid ilk have replaced them. These managers create nothing. Rather, they implement the assorted corporate policies mandated by their masters. And their masters are not going to allow a potentially strong leader near anything that resembles a position of power.
In his column, Rich implies that a repressed Congress is thwarting Obama’s raging, progressive hormones. The truth is that there ain’t none. Obama’s as repressed as Congress when it comes to bucking the country’s corporatacracy. His rhetoric is sound without fury. And that’s the best we can hope for until corporations are stripped of their personhood and constitutional rights.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Rats, Lice and Currency
Rats desert a sinking ship; lice flee a cooling corpse. It is no different with currency. As soon as it begins to sink, value heads for the nearest exit. There is, however, one difference. Rats occupied the ship, the lice were at home on the body, but value hasn’t inhered to our currency for decades. The truth is that our worthless fiat currency was one of the greatest scams ever to be foisted on the world.
It all started in another decade mired in another war. The time was the 70s, and the war was Vietnam. For the first time in the twentieth century, the United States found itself saddled with a trade deficit.
At that time, we were a signatory to the Bretton Woods Agreements which obligated us to keep our currency pegged to gold, i.e., every dollar represented real value. The problem was that we’d printed so much money just to keep up with the cost of losing the war in Vietnam that we only had enough gold to cover twenty percent our the currency in issue.
The solution to that problem was simplicity itself. Nixon simply unpegged the dollar from the value of gold. The liberated paper now represented whatever we could scam the world into thinking it was worth.
Without the albatross of gold handing around its neck, both the dollar and the Dow Jones soared while assets bubbled.
One plus side of a worthless currency is that it is much easier to go into debt. And go into debt we did. Between 1987 and 2005, public and private debt went from $10 trillion to $43 trillion.
Of course there’s the danger that some damn fool will look at the Dow and realize that it’s being denominated in worthless dollars. Once upon a time, the Dow was sitting at 12,200. However, had it been denominated in Euros, it would have dropped to 7300. This simply wouldn’t do.
These days, Obama, Geithner and Bernanke are like tap dancers frantically tapping away in a burning theater, smiles frozen on their faces as they try to convince the audience that the smoke is really fresh air.
To them, reality is whatever they want it to be.
This allows our oligarchs to game the system, which they tout as the actions of a free market. The freedom so cherished by free market ideologues is the freedom to manipulate the free market so it favors their interests.
They find the roller coaster ride that is our economy stimulating. The slow climb up followed by the stomach-churning plunge downward invigorates them. And they expect us to enjoy the ride as much as they do. What they forget is that while they are safely strapped in their seats, we’re clinging to the outside of the car, and a lot of us fall off as the car speeds down towards the bottom.
Oligarchs never do.
It all started in another decade mired in another war. The time was the 70s, and the war was Vietnam. For the first time in the twentieth century, the United States found itself saddled with a trade deficit.
At that time, we were a signatory to the Bretton Woods Agreements which obligated us to keep our currency pegged to gold, i.e., every dollar represented real value. The problem was that we’d printed so much money just to keep up with the cost of losing the war in Vietnam that we only had enough gold to cover twenty percent our the currency in issue.
The solution to that problem was simplicity itself. Nixon simply unpegged the dollar from the value of gold. The liberated paper now represented whatever we could scam the world into thinking it was worth.
Without the albatross of gold handing around its neck, both the dollar and the Dow Jones soared while assets bubbled.
One plus side of a worthless currency is that it is much easier to go into debt. And go into debt we did. Between 1987 and 2005, public and private debt went from $10 trillion to $43 trillion.
Of course there’s the danger that some damn fool will look at the Dow and realize that it’s being denominated in worthless dollars. Once upon a time, the Dow was sitting at 12,200. However, had it been denominated in Euros, it would have dropped to 7300. This simply wouldn’t do.
These days, Obama, Geithner and Bernanke are like tap dancers frantically tapping away in a burning theater, smiles frozen on their faces as they try to convince the audience that the smoke is really fresh air.
To them, reality is whatever they want it to be.
This allows our oligarchs to game the system, which they tout as the actions of a free market. The freedom so cherished by free market ideologues is the freedom to manipulate the free market so it favors their interests.
They find the roller coaster ride that is our economy stimulating. The slow climb up followed by the stomach-churning plunge downward invigorates them. And they expect us to enjoy the ride as much as they do. What they forget is that while they are safely strapped in their seats, we’re clinging to the outside of the car, and a lot of us fall off as the car speeds down towards the bottom.
Oligarchs never do.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Wages of Prosperity
Those who care wonder how the United States ended up as a militarized security state. Logic dictates that as soon as the Soviet Union fell, the rationale for our bloated defense establishment was no more and we should have seen a massive demobilization, especially in the wake of the Vietnam debacle. But instead, our military has spread like a cancerous growth across the face of the earth.
This growth has not caused much of a ripple because the Pentagon has, in effect, gone underground with its all-volunteer army and private contractors. Without mandatory military service funneling young men into the military, the military does not cause as much of a stir on Main Street as it once did, nor do unpopular and unnecessary wars generate the same level of passion and protest as Vietnam.
Many reasons have be put forth to explain this, and all of them contain an element of truth. However, there is one factor that has been overlooked.
A bloated military establishment is a product of prosperity. As long as I have a good paying job and the benefits I feel entitled to are not touched I will tolerate such an establishment, especially since our colonial wars carry all the impact of a video game.
But, what will happen with the money begins to dry up, when states face bankruptcy and services are cut?
What happens when jobs and homes are lost?
What happens when our military-industrial complex is finally recognized for what it is: an expensive bauble we can no longer afford?
What happens when the public finally realizes that the Pentagon is little more than the world’s largest pork barrel?
Is it possible that the public will finally ask why in the hell we are spending $57,000 a minute on Afghanistan when schools are being shuttered and the ranks of the unemployed swell?
Of course, it’s a sad commentary on our society that when the public finally turns against the military it will be for economic reasons. It never occurs to anyone that the bombing of women and children just to keep our military-industrial complex solvent is morally abhorrent.
But then, if you give a boy a toy he just has to play with it.
This growth has not caused much of a ripple because the Pentagon has, in effect, gone underground with its all-volunteer army and private contractors. Without mandatory military service funneling young men into the military, the military does not cause as much of a stir on Main Street as it once did, nor do unpopular and unnecessary wars generate the same level of passion and protest as Vietnam.
Many reasons have be put forth to explain this, and all of them contain an element of truth. However, there is one factor that has been overlooked.
A bloated military establishment is a product of prosperity. As long as I have a good paying job and the benefits I feel entitled to are not touched I will tolerate such an establishment, especially since our colonial wars carry all the impact of a video game.
But, what will happen with the money begins to dry up, when states face bankruptcy and services are cut?
What happens when jobs and homes are lost?
What happens when our military-industrial complex is finally recognized for what it is: an expensive bauble we can no longer afford?
What happens when the public finally realizes that the Pentagon is little more than the world’s largest pork barrel?
Is it possible that the public will finally ask why in the hell we are spending $57,000 a minute on Afghanistan when schools are being shuttered and the ranks of the unemployed swell?
Of course, it’s a sad commentary on our society that when the public finally turns against the military it will be for economic reasons. It never occurs to anyone that the bombing of women and children just to keep our military-industrial complex solvent is morally abhorrent.
But then, if you give a boy a toy he just has to play with it.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Again!
The rhetoric soared, the air was thick with buzz words and all the right buttons were pressed. The Democrats stood and applauded, the Republicans sat on their hands. Promises were made; programs were announced; initiatives were launched.
Again.
From all appearances, action remains mired in partisanship, a partisanship that has nothing to do with ideological differences or political philosophies, and everything to do with power for power’s sake. Obama wants nothing other than to cling to it while Republicans care only about destroying his presidency.
At one point in his State of the Union speech, Obama noted that the American people have lost confidence in their government. This is to be expected when you have a Congress and a White House in which the mentality is that of a gaggle of arrested adolescents.
This goes beyond progressive and liberal carping. Quite frankly, any progressive who expected “change” from the Obama administration wasn’t paying attention during the campaign. The Democrats are doing what they’ve been doing since the end of the nineteenth century, defanging progressive and populist movements. What we have here, is a Democratic Party on the cusp of self destruction because of its deluded belief that it must rule from the center and that the primary duty of any Democratic politician is to keep his or her corporate handlers happy and the hell with what the public wants.
Peter Wallsten has written a piece about the Left’s displeasure with Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Corporate Centrist himself, in which Wallsten suggests that Obama is hiding behind Emanuel’s wingtips, which is probably closer to the truth than the progressive belief that Emanuel is sabotaging Obama’s progressive platform.
The idea is to let Emanuel take the fire while Obama spouts his populist rhetoric while both work the corporate center.
Bruce Lee, chief executive of the corporate Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) says, “Rahm’s approach, like the president’s, is not ideological. It’s practical.” In other words, the emphasis is on professionalism, another buzz word that hides a multitude of mischief. It tells us the professionalism is given more credence than principle. Unfortunately, professionalism is a synonym for dehumanization. It has its place, but like any double-edged sword, it must be used with care. (The Holocaust would have gone nowhere without the professionalism and practicality of its managers. Hate inspired it; professionalism made it possible. Not to suggest that there’s any comparison.)
In other words, both Obama and Emanuel are technocrats and technocrats make notoriously poor leaders because they lack the passion leadership requires if it is to be effective.
Wallsten describes one White House meeting with progressive leaders who were urging the Obama administration to reverse the onerous Bush-era antiterrorism policies. According to Wallsten, “Mr. Emanuel was often the loudest voice questioning the wisdom of such changes, according to a participant in the discussion. His concern wasn’t so much the substance of the policy, but the political consequences, this person says.”
Therein we see the priorities of the Beltway: holding on to power is more important than protecting our civil liberties. It’s okay to ignore them as long as the votes are there. Emanuel is reported to be open to any idea that could gain a majority vote. He forgets that a leader doesn’t try to gain a majority, he creates one.
Though how much of a majority Rahm’s approach is gaining is open to question. As Wallsten points out:
The unrest among liberals comes at a perilous political time. Party strategists worry that anger on the left could depress turnout in this year’s midterm elections and cost the party congressional seats and state governorships. The most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC survey found 55% of Republicans “very interested” in the November elections, compared to 38% of the Democrats.
When one stops to think about it, a liberal boycott of the midterms might have some long-term benefits, because only if the Democrats lose both the White House and Congress will there be a chance that they will finally realize just how bankrupt their centerism is. It has always been, a Democratic graveyard. Right now the party is in a casket, ready to be lowered into the hole. A good jolt of electro-defeat might bring it back to life.
Progressives and liberals have fallen into the habit of voting for the lesser evil. Surely eight years of a Clinton administration and one year with Obama must have taught them that there is no “lesser” and there never will be until the Democrats abandon the center.
Rhetoric notwithstanding, just how different would a McCain/Palin administration make other than a notable drop in the collective intelligence of the Beltway, which isn’t breaking any records as it is? The differences between the two have proven to be superficial, because the sad truth is that there is little difference between Republican and Democratic control.
And the idea that progressives could drive a Democratic administration to the left is a pipe dream. It ain’t going to happen as long as lobbyists write the checks.
Again.
From all appearances, action remains mired in partisanship, a partisanship that has nothing to do with ideological differences or political philosophies, and everything to do with power for power’s sake. Obama wants nothing other than to cling to it while Republicans care only about destroying his presidency.
At one point in his State of the Union speech, Obama noted that the American people have lost confidence in their government. This is to be expected when you have a Congress and a White House in which the mentality is that of a gaggle of arrested adolescents.
This goes beyond progressive and liberal carping. Quite frankly, any progressive who expected “change” from the Obama administration wasn’t paying attention during the campaign. The Democrats are doing what they’ve been doing since the end of the nineteenth century, defanging progressive and populist movements. What we have here, is a Democratic Party on the cusp of self destruction because of its deluded belief that it must rule from the center and that the primary duty of any Democratic politician is to keep his or her corporate handlers happy and the hell with what the public wants.
Peter Wallsten has written a piece about the Left’s displeasure with Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Corporate Centrist himself, in which Wallsten suggests that Obama is hiding behind Emanuel’s wingtips, which is probably closer to the truth than the progressive belief that Emanuel is sabotaging Obama’s progressive platform.
The idea is to let Emanuel take the fire while Obama spouts his populist rhetoric while both work the corporate center.
Bruce Lee, chief executive of the corporate Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) says, “Rahm’s approach, like the president’s, is not ideological. It’s practical.” In other words, the emphasis is on professionalism, another buzz word that hides a multitude of mischief. It tells us the professionalism is given more credence than principle. Unfortunately, professionalism is a synonym for dehumanization. It has its place, but like any double-edged sword, it must be used with care. (The Holocaust would have gone nowhere without the professionalism and practicality of its managers. Hate inspired it; professionalism made it possible. Not to suggest that there’s any comparison.)
In other words, both Obama and Emanuel are technocrats and technocrats make notoriously poor leaders because they lack the passion leadership requires if it is to be effective.
Wallsten describes one White House meeting with progressive leaders who were urging the Obama administration to reverse the onerous Bush-era antiterrorism policies. According to Wallsten, “Mr. Emanuel was often the loudest voice questioning the wisdom of such changes, according to a participant in the discussion. His concern wasn’t so much the substance of the policy, but the political consequences, this person says.”
Therein we see the priorities of the Beltway: holding on to power is more important than protecting our civil liberties. It’s okay to ignore them as long as the votes are there. Emanuel is reported to be open to any idea that could gain a majority vote. He forgets that a leader doesn’t try to gain a majority, he creates one.
Though how much of a majority Rahm’s approach is gaining is open to question. As Wallsten points out:
The unrest among liberals comes at a perilous political time. Party strategists worry that anger on the left could depress turnout in this year’s midterm elections and cost the party congressional seats and state governorships. The most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC survey found 55% of Republicans “very interested” in the November elections, compared to 38% of the Democrats.
When one stops to think about it, a liberal boycott of the midterms might have some long-term benefits, because only if the Democrats lose both the White House and Congress will there be a chance that they will finally realize just how bankrupt their centerism is. It has always been, a Democratic graveyard. Right now the party is in a casket, ready to be lowered into the hole. A good jolt of electro-defeat might bring it back to life.
Progressives and liberals have fallen into the habit of voting for the lesser evil. Surely eight years of a Clinton administration and one year with Obama must have taught them that there is no “lesser” and there never will be until the Democrats abandon the center.
Rhetoric notwithstanding, just how different would a McCain/Palin administration make other than a notable drop in the collective intelligence of the Beltway, which isn’t breaking any records as it is? The differences between the two have proven to be superficial, because the sad truth is that there is little difference between Republican and Democratic control.
And the idea that progressives could drive a Democratic administration to the left is a pipe dream. It ain’t going to happen as long as lobbyists write the checks.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sanity is too much!
In times like these, sanity is a pain in the ass because all that seems to be coming out of the Beltway these days is madness. Here we are, looking at an indebtedness in the neighborhood of $7 trillion, and Obama announces he is going to cut spending.
On the surface, this seems to be the sensible thing to do. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. According to Tuesday’s New York Times, “The estimated $250 billion in savings over ten years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over that time.
(Billion/trillion, they rhyme nicely, but there’s a world of difference. Using seconds instead of dollars, a billion is the equivalent of 37 years while a trillion is 37,000 years.)
However, things really get crazy when we learn that none of these cuts will touch either the Pentagon or the Department of Homeland Security, the two running sores on Liberty’s face.
Hello!
Here we are pumping $57,000 a minute in to the war in Afghanistan, in what has to be the dumbest military campaign since the French fought tooth and nail to control that vast wasteland known as the Sahara Desert, and Obama won’t touch the Pentagon.
Were a multinational conglomerate to buy out the Pentagon and do a cost-benefit analysis of the Pentagon’s expenditures against its gains, said conglomerate would not hesitate to break the place up, sell the constituent pieces and close it down. We’re looking at a major loss leader that is bleeding the country dry.
Every time I look at the Pentagon I see what could easily be the world’s greatest indoor shopping mall. It has everything a successful mall needs—the square footage and the parking. Instead, it is a rat hole down which our national wealth is being dumped.
Obama’s deficit cutting efforts remind me of the fool who tries to fell a might oak by plucking off a handful of leaves.
Sanity really sucks!
On the surface, this seems to be the sensible thing to do. But, as they say, the devil is in the details. According to Tuesday’s New York Times, “The estimated $250 billion in savings over ten years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over that time.
(Billion/trillion, they rhyme nicely, but there’s a world of difference. Using seconds instead of dollars, a billion is the equivalent of 37 years while a trillion is 37,000 years.)
However, things really get crazy when we learn that none of these cuts will touch either the Pentagon or the Department of Homeland Security, the two running sores on Liberty’s face.
Hello!
Here we are pumping $57,000 a minute in to the war in Afghanistan, in what has to be the dumbest military campaign since the French fought tooth and nail to control that vast wasteland known as the Sahara Desert, and Obama won’t touch the Pentagon.
Were a multinational conglomerate to buy out the Pentagon and do a cost-benefit analysis of the Pentagon’s expenditures against its gains, said conglomerate would not hesitate to break the place up, sell the constituent pieces and close it down. We’re looking at a major loss leader that is bleeding the country dry.
Every time I look at the Pentagon I see what could easily be the world’s greatest indoor shopping mall. It has everything a successful mall needs—the square footage and the parking. Instead, it is a rat hole down which our national wealth is being dumped.
Obama’s deficit cutting efforts remind me of the fool who tries to fell a might oak by plucking off a handful of leaves.
Sanity really sucks!
Monday, January 25, 2010
How to boost your anxiety level and live in fear.
I keep no weapon in my house. Never have; never will. Okay, so there’s the chef’s knife in the kitchen drawer, but that doesn’t’ count.
I didn’t even arm myself during the media-hyped “crime wave” of the early seventies when our Euromerican oligarchs decided to neutralize the gains made by the civil rights movement by siphoning as many Afromericans in to jail as they possibly could.
There was one time, though, when I saw an ad for a commando knife and wondered if it might not be a good idea to keep one in my nightstand “just in case.” As soon as that thought crossed my mind, a funny thing happened: my anxiety level rose. That was because just the thought of arming myself brought to mind all of the “possible” situations that might require its use.
And that’s the problem—sweating possibilities instead of probabilities. Anything is possible. Yes, it is “possible” some evil characters may break into my house in the dead of night and murder my wife and me. It’s possible, but not probable, which is why I don’t worry about it unless I start obsessing on the possible. (Probability means having some hard data to work with. It is probably I could be wacked in an automobile accident, but it is highly improbable I’ll ever be murdered in my sleep.)
That was the problem with the knife. As soon as I thought about getting a weapon for security, my anxiety level rose because just having the weapon on the premises shifted my focus from the probable to the possible.
It’s a closed feedback loop. I consider the possible, feel threatened by it and buy a weapon to alleviate the anxiety it creates. Yet, the very possession of the weapon increases my anxiety and prompts me to think about buying a deadlier weapon. Had I purchased the knife it would have been a matter of time before I became so anxious that the knife wouldn’t have been enough. In the end I would have ended up with an assault rifle tucked under the bed.
And this explains how America became a security state. The possibility of Communists, criminals, terrorists or (fill in the blank) worries us, so our leaders churn out weapons and start wars to make us feel secure. But they don’t because we began to obsess on the “possible.” This results in a gaggle of security bureaucrats sitting around table saying “What if…? What if….? What if…”
What if the terrorists develop an effective shoe bomb? (Have airline passengers take off their shoes.) What if an explosive can be poured into a shampoo bottle? (Limit the amount of shampoo that can be carried onto an airliner.) What if the terrorists develop a workable underwear bomb? (Use your imagination on that one.)
And, of course, the more secure we try to become, the more anxious we become, which suits are oligarchs because an anxious people are more willing to surrender their freedoms in exchange for a false sense of security and, as Ben Franklin noted, they end up with neither.
As for me, I think I will remain unarmed; it keeps the anxiety level down. And while I’m at it, I think I’ll hold on to my freedoms. Somewhere it is written that they are inalienable. So, no matter what the government does or what the courts decide, I remain a free citizen of a free country.
I didn’t even arm myself during the media-hyped “crime wave” of the early seventies when our Euromerican oligarchs decided to neutralize the gains made by the civil rights movement by siphoning as many Afromericans in to jail as they possibly could.
There was one time, though, when I saw an ad for a commando knife and wondered if it might not be a good idea to keep one in my nightstand “just in case.” As soon as that thought crossed my mind, a funny thing happened: my anxiety level rose. That was because just the thought of arming myself brought to mind all of the “possible” situations that might require its use.
And that’s the problem—sweating possibilities instead of probabilities. Anything is possible. Yes, it is “possible” some evil characters may break into my house in the dead of night and murder my wife and me. It’s possible, but not probable, which is why I don’t worry about it unless I start obsessing on the possible. (Probability means having some hard data to work with. It is probably I could be wacked in an automobile accident, but it is highly improbable I’ll ever be murdered in my sleep.)
That was the problem with the knife. As soon as I thought about getting a weapon for security, my anxiety level rose because just having the weapon on the premises shifted my focus from the probable to the possible.
It’s a closed feedback loop. I consider the possible, feel threatened by it and buy a weapon to alleviate the anxiety it creates. Yet, the very possession of the weapon increases my anxiety and prompts me to think about buying a deadlier weapon. Had I purchased the knife it would have been a matter of time before I became so anxious that the knife wouldn’t have been enough. In the end I would have ended up with an assault rifle tucked under the bed.
And this explains how America became a security state. The possibility of Communists, criminals, terrorists or (fill in the blank) worries us, so our leaders churn out weapons and start wars to make us feel secure. But they don’t because we began to obsess on the “possible.” This results in a gaggle of security bureaucrats sitting around table saying “What if…? What if….? What if…”
What if the terrorists develop an effective shoe bomb? (Have airline passengers take off their shoes.) What if an explosive can be poured into a shampoo bottle? (Limit the amount of shampoo that can be carried onto an airliner.) What if the terrorists develop a workable underwear bomb? (Use your imagination on that one.)
And, of course, the more secure we try to become, the more anxious we become, which suits are oligarchs because an anxious people are more willing to surrender their freedoms in exchange for a false sense of security and, as Ben Franklin noted, they end up with neither.
As for me, I think I will remain unarmed; it keeps the anxiety level down. And while I’m at it, I think I’ll hold on to my freedoms. Somewhere it is written that they are inalienable. So, no matter what the government does or what the courts decide, I remain a free citizen of a free country.
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